Chapter 560

Sophia Nussbaum gazed outside as the sun sank and the sky gradually darkened. Even from the dormitory corridor of Victoria Lyceum, she could see the black smoke rising from the smelting plant near the Spree River. Berlin was in an uproar over the fire.

Carriages and automobiles traveling along the roads some distance from the Spree had stopped to watch the blaze, causing traffic to back up. No matter how hard the drivers whipped their horses, the carriages caught near the scene couldn’t get through. The commotion from the main roads on all sides carried into the dormitory corridor. Whistles and the sneezes of horses hitched to mail coaches were drowned out by people shouting.

Sophia rubbed her chin as she glanced at the Imperial Dailies in her other hand.

[Forty Minutes Since the Besthafen Smelting Plant Fire Began; Blaze Still Uncontained Despite Deployment of 23 Mages]

The front page showed a photograph of a cloud of smoke not unlike the one she was looking at now. Sophia tapped the unfamiliar device hooked around her ear and fell into thought.

Firefighting systems had been in place since long before Ion Forso, yet fire had always been feared as a force that threatened civilization. What good were grand, carefully designed city plans when a single fire could sweep through and leave nothing but a skeleton of charred remains? Most brick houses didn’t even leave behind that much. They were reduced to ash without a trace.

Things had improved somewhat with the advent of magic. Mages with Special Abilities well suited to fighting fire were recruited into the fire service, while those with a knack for calculations learned spells and honed their skills at extinguishing blazes. It had long since become far easier to put out fires than it once had been.

And yet, for some reason, the mages now seemed unable to do their jobs in the face of the flames. Some might argue that the smelting plant was simply enormous and that, since it was a place where fire was used in the first place, further explosions were always a risk. But Sophia didn’t think that was the case.

Something was wrong.

Ever since she had gotten in touch with her new friend, Sophia’s suspicions had only grown. Were there really no mages among those twenty-three whose Special Abilities were suited to firefighting? Surely they should at least be reporting some signs of success, such as the flames gradually dying down. But from where Sophia stood, the sky above the smelting plant was growing darker by the minute, and the fire was spreading. Traffic wasn’t even being properly managed, as though most people couldn’t get anywhere near the scene. Nothing had improved. She couldn’t reach her friend, either.

Just then, a sound came from the artifact.

— […Proceed to Sector A7… Lord Mecklenburg, please respond if you can hear me.]

The same message played at regular intervals.

The owner of this communication device was probably ‘Lord Mecklenburg.’ Sophia ran her fingers over the artifact again. It seemed that touching it the wrong way changed the channel, bringing other voices through. Strangely, most of the broadcasts weren’t addressed to ‘Lord Mecklenburg’ at all.

Based on the information she had gathered over the past several dozen minutes, Sophia Nussbaum realized that the artifact in her hand also received alerts intended for Lord Askanien. How did it work? She had no idea. Did it need a magic formula or mana to operate? If so, then Lukas Askanien’s mana must have been inside ‘Lord Mecklenburg’s’ device. She suspected as much because, at regular intervals, a voice addressed to ‘Lord Mecklenburg’ would come through, asking him to respond if he could hear it.

What a stroke of luck.

Sophia Nussbaum had managed to piece together the general situation. Even though her new friend Askanien had cut off contact, she could still work out what was happening from the responses coming back to the Command Headquarters’s general transmissions to the 101st Unit. She had even learned that her new friend had insisted they protect the ‘Imperial Second Academy Student Military Corps joint training ground in Spandau.’ She couldn’t hear what her friend was saying, but the Command Headquarters usually repeated the messages in reverse once. She had already suspected as much, too. When Spandau was mentioned, her friend’s voice had risen as if he approved of the suggestion.

Her friend had asked for her cooperation. Then he had thanked her for helping and said he would bring her a bottle of wine later. Sophia closed her eyes, then opened them again with an indifferent look.

What kind of cooperation could possibly be over this easily?

She hadn’t done enough to warrant even being treated to a drink. That was the point. What she had contributed was far too little to call it cooperation, such a grand word. Personally, she wasn’t particularly fond of being praised for something she hadn’t even done. Right… Sophia nodded to the junior students who greeted her, all the while lost in thought.

By the time she realized she had been walking, she was already at her room. She was returning from dropping a letter into the public warp mailbox in front of the school. It was addressed to her older female cousin—or, more precisely, it would pass through her cousin’s hands before being sent on to somewhere in Berlin. Sophia quietly locked her door so the sound wouldn’t carry into the neighboring room.

Then she unfolded the Social Democratic Party’s newspaper, the one her cousin liked to read. The party didn’t have much money, so apart from two issues a month, its newspaper was always printed in ink. But the ink-printed paper wasn’t important right now. A newspaper printed that morning couldn’t deliver news in real time.

Sophia checked the door again. It was still locked. She took a thin sheet of mana paper decorated with a red ribbon from her drawer. When she slipped the old party paper bearing the words ‘Social Democratic Party’ into the filter, a crackling voice came through.

[…What on earth is the government doing? The police mages from no fewer than three districts—Reinickendorf, Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, and Spandau—are all heading by carriage to Spandau’s industrial complex and magical training grounds. Is the government planning to gather hundreds of people for training when they should be putting out the fire? Or have they finally decided to fetch some protective artifacts? Haha!]

[Now, why would you put it like that? Those factories are vital to Germany’s defense, so of course they need protection. From what, I couldn’t say, but they certainly need it.]

[See? You don’t know either.]

This was a broadcast run by an executive of the Social Democratic Party. Whenever something major happened in the country, the party’s executives would share information they had obtained through party channels with members and prospective members in this way.

Today’s broadcast was being hosted, ‘unusually,’ with a member of the Free Conservative Party as a guest. To Sophia Nussbaum, however, there was nothing unusual or new about that. After all, she was the one who had suggested it. The Social Democratic Party wasn’t merely hosting a guest from the Free Conservative Party today. The two parties were working together outright. Of course, none of the listeners would know that.

The broadcast wasn’t particularly secretive. Anyone with one of these party papers could listen, but few people went out of their way to contact the Social Democratic Party and request one. And since the broadcasts were irregular, the audience was tiny. The government naturally knew about the broadcasts, too, but it also knew how little influence they had for the reasons mentioned earlier, so it didn’t bother shutting them down. Sometimes, excessive suppression only makes people more eager to speak out.

However, if the broadcast tried to expand its reach and attract public attention, or if it caused the government too much trouble, the authorities would crack down on it immediately. The Social Democratic Party knew that much.

[…This is what matters. Why isn’t theImperial Dailiesreporting any of this?]

It mattered, all right. Anyone who wanted information they couldn’t get from the newspapers needed access to these semi-exclusive party papers. Sophia had one herself, thanks to a relative who closely followed and analyzed the activities of the various political parties. Even as she listened to news of yet another blunder by an utterly inept government—one so pathetic it made you want to shake your head—she lowered her gaze and folded her arms. She set the paper down and listened closely to the broadcast.

[Do they really think they can fool the public by secretly sending police officers to Spandau’s defense industry complex? Is this to protect the bigwigs of the Free Conservative Party in Spandau?]

[Oh, come on. You can’t say things like that when I’m sitting right here.]

[What do you mean, ‘oh, come on’? Are they trying to find the missing heir to the Grand Duchy? They haven’t told anyone that the Hereditary Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz has disappeared, either. They must be quite surprised that we know about it.]

Sophia closed her eyes and took a steadying breath.

Her new friend had left a brief message with some information. There was some kind of strange dirt made through magic, and it had supposedly been prepared to attack socialism today. Sophia suspected that the dirt was also responsible for the fire.

How could dirt start a fire? Was it sulfur or something? No, that wasn’t it. Her friend had said it was made through magic. She didn’t know why socialism had been dragged into this, but the only organizations that came to mind that could pull off something this large with magic were cults like Pleroma. If an organization like that was involved, they must have obtained the same information the Social Democratic Party had.

But how? The Social Democrats didn’t go around making a big fuss over information anyone could find out, either. They pieced together what they learned from other political figures, the mages within their own party, and letters from their Berlin members, who proved to be far better sources of information than even those mages. None of the things they broadcast was public knowledge. But neither was it strictly classified information.

And yet, the enemy intended to attack socialism.

In that case…

[They might as well try to cover the sky with their palm!]

There was no way the enemy didn’t have a copy of the Social Democratic Party’s newspaper, was there?

Sophia Nussbaum knew what her friend was trying to do. Her friend had said, ‘We need to protect Spandau.’

[…Our Social Democratic Party knows the government’s every move. The police mages in the other districts haven’t been deployed, save for the small number needed to locate the Hereditary Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Of course, caution is a good thing, but if even that small group isn’t acting in the public’s interest, then who exactly is this country supposed to serve?]

Whenever a word caught her interest, Sophia seized on it.

If his friend hadn’t been Askanien, Sophia would probably have taken his words at face value. ‘Spandau must be protected.’ But because it was Askanien, she had to think it over. She didn’t know him particularly well, but from what she’d heard, he wasn’t the kind of person who would settle for such an obvious, simplistic answer. Spandau? If he were going to give an answer that was this straightforward yet vague and questionable, he would have been executed by firing squad long ago instead of still being alive today. At least, that was what Sophia Nussbaum thought. Spandau wasn’t a good choice.

It was about time she went downstairs to receive a reply. Sophia pushed back her chair.

Boom…

Sophia looked up. There was a sound like an explosion, and the windows rattled. The corners of her tightly set mouth drooped. A cloud of gray dust rose into the sky from a spot right beside the smelting plant, hidden from view by another building. She jumped to her feet and pressed herself against the window, but she couldn’t make out anything more. Sophia tapped the artifact. There was still no word from Askanien.

A few minutes passed. Before long, the front page of the Imperial Dailies began to change.

[House Collapses on Perleberger Straße in Front of Besthafen Smelting Plant]

Sophia read the first headline, felt a chill run through her, and continued to the next.

[Explosion atSir Stumm’s Residence, the “King of Saarabia,”¹on Tiergartenstraße in Mitte]

Askanien had predicted that a fire would break out in Spandau—at least, on the surface. But Spandau, my foot. A fire had broken out at the residence of a Free Conservative Party figure right in the middle of the capital.

It was a success.

At least one part of it was.

Askanien had diverted the enemy’s attention toward Spandau. No enemy foolish enough to make a move would target a place the government was already prepared to defend. Naturally, they would go where the government had left a gap. That was what Askanien had been counting on. So he had insisted that they prepare for an attack precisely where the government’s defenses had been weakened.

Even though she had figured out his plan and Askanien had thanked her, Sophia had no intention of stopping there. The enemy undoubtedly had access to the Social Democratic Party’s newspaper, and that medium was ideal for convincing them of something precisely because it was somewhat insular. That was why Sophia Nussbaum had written to the Social Democrats and helped shape their broadcast into what it was now.

So, what came next?

If they had diverted the enemy’s attention, they couldn’t stop there. There had to be a reason for doing so. If the plan was to make it look as though the government was diverting its personnel to Spandau while preparing to secure other locations, then the explosion and fire at that residence weren’t a major problem. The mages already standing by would put out the fire soon enough.

All that remained was for Askanien, who had been at the fire near the smelting plant, to return safely. But strangely enough, a building had collapsed. Her calculations were off. “Damn it,” Sophia muttered, narrowing her eyes.

Just then, a series of beeps sounded by her ear. Sophia’s head snapped up. A voice speaking in a military manner came through, rumbling amid the sound of wind.

— [Lord Mecklenburg, we need to verify your identity. Stop where you are and raise your hands.]

She could hear someone exchanging words with the speaker. Sophia touched the device by her ear. She wanted to hear more clearly, but there was no way to turn up the volume. Before long, another voice spoke, sounding as though it were announcing an official confirmation.

— [It is indeed Mecklenburg of the 98th Unit. Headquarters, attention, 98th and 101st Units. Albert Mecklenburg of the 98th Unit returned safely at 7:20 PM. Search operation terminated.]

Immediately afterward, the voices of the party officials came through the party paper filter. They cleared their throats and raised their voices.

[It seems the Hereditary Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who had gone missing, has turned up in the city center perfectly fine.Perfectly fine!You see? Just as we’ve been saying for the past twenty minutes, the only reason this person could have suddenly disappeared was a whim of his own. Aristocrats do have a habit of acting recklessly without a shred of maturity. So what, exactly, was the point of all the personnel deployed to search for the Hereditary Grand Duke until now?]

Translator Note

1. Referring to historical figure Carl Ferdinand von Stumm-Halberg. ↩︎